


Easy as ABC

by typoqueen



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Box of bones, Creepy kids, Creepy old house, Dark, Dead child, Dean falls for a sexy preschool teacher, Dying Wish, Ghost Hunting, Ghosts, Haunted House, Haunted nursery, Haunted preschool, Horror, Mystery, Okay I haven't got to the sexy preschool teacher yet, Other, Paranormal, Sam and Dean visit the UK on a hunt, Scary, Suspense, Trap door - Freeform, Winchester Brothers - Freeform, but I will get to her eventually I promise, ghost child, ghost hunting in the uk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-06 22:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19072033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typoqueen/pseuds/typoqueen
Summary: Sam and Dean reluctantly follow a trail to England, where they find a ghost haunting a nursery school. The task is to help a friend with their dying wish; to bury her dead child. But with more questions than answers, the brothers find themselves in a tangled web, and in need of assistance from a beautiful preschool teacher who is obsessed with all things paranormal.





	1. Dying Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zipping up the suitcase and standing it by the door, Dean tried to imagine what he and Sam might find in Alana's childhood home in the middle of the British countryside. Dean almost didn’t want to go, didn’t want to open up the can of worms that definitely wasn’t his responsibility, but he knew he’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t honour Alana’s dying wish. Even if it meant facing a box of remains, the imprint that a child’s death left on the world, Dean decided it was ultimately the right thing to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I intended for this work to be something simpler and less serious. But Sarah's story has been rattling around my head for some time, and I feel like I need to get it out. This may be a long one, but I hope I can give this baby the send off she deserves.

Despite retaining a business-like approach to most hunts, occasionally Sam and Dean Winchester felt themselves connected in a way to the people they were saving. It was one of these occasions when Alana Mitchell, thirty-five year old mother of three and widow passed away in the early hours of one Friday morning. It had been a hard case, involving an odd mix of demonic and vampiric dangers. Alana had suffered great injuries as a result of the hunt, mainly from a particular demon who wanted information from her. Sam and Dean had tried their best, but unfortunately there were some occasions the boys weren't quick enough. As Alana faded away, she had given the brothers instructions along with a deep, dark secret she had never told anyone, not even her late husband or her three children. With the burden now lifted from her heart, she died. These instructions were her dying wish. How could the Winchesters refuse?

It would have felt wrong passing the case on to hunters from the UK, so Sam booked them flights to London the next day. They were packing their bags already, readying themselves in quiet anticipation. Saddened by yet another death they were unable to prevent, they mourned with stoic faces and silence.

"It just seems a bit ridiculous," Dean muttered, for the fifth time. "That we have to go all that way for one little thing."

"I know. But we gave her our word. We have to see this through to the end." Sam replied, rubbing forehead as he chucked more socks into his suitcase.

"Y'know the worst part is that we can't take Baby with us..." Dean shuddered at the thought of driving around England without his beloved car. No hire car could ever hold a flame to the Impala. "Who knows how long we'll be there for. Hate to think about putting her in storage."

"You'll live through the pain, Dean."

Dean let out a little huff, but inevitably knew that squeezing sympathy from Sam wouldn't do him a jot of good. Zipping up the suitcase and standing it by the door, he tried to imagine what he and Sam might find in Alana's childhood home in the middle of the British countryside. He thought it odd that Alana had chosen he and Sam of all people to tell her story to, and even odder that she’d never revealed the truth to her husband. The truth that she’d had a child when she was younger, a child who had died, and a life that she’d abandoned to move to America. Dean almost didn’t want to go, didn’t want to open up the can of worms that definitely wasn’t his responsibility, but he knew he’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t honour Alana’s dying wish. Even if it meant facing a box of remains, the imprint of a child’s death left on the world, Dean decided it was ultimately the right thing to do.

Besides, he was a sucker for British accents.

*****

The flight had been long and boring, and the journey from Heathrow to…. Wherever the hell they were, had been equally painful. Sam had slept most of the way in the hire car, but now they had arrived at a hotel it was Dean’s time to shine. He noted that there were literally no motels anywhere, the only option seemed to be cheap hotels or weird ‘Bed & Breakfasts’ that seemed to just be spare bedrooms in people’s houses. They went for a cheap hotel, which was part of a large chain and fairly conspicuous but at least they had a decent bed for the night. On the plus side, this place was a damn sight cleaner than most of the motels they’d ever used back in the states.

“Maybe when this case is closed we can do a bit of sightseeing, huh. I wouldn’t mind checking out the Natural History Museum in London.” Sam suggested, stretching out his arms and feeling a few clicks in his back.

“Sure,” Dean grunted, “Wouldn’t hurt to look at some old dinosaur bones, I guess. But let’s just focus on this thing first. I wanna get it over with as soon as possible.”

“I know, I know. I’ve made arrangements for us to visit the preschool where Alana’s daughter went when she was alive. They might have some old records we can look at.”

“Hey, look, she didn’t say anything about a preschool or any records. She said we had to go to her home and give her daughter’s remains a proper burial, that’s all.”

“But aren’t you curious, Dean? About what happened? Three year olds don’t just die for no reason.”

“You’re right, but it’s none of our business. We came here to do a job.”

“Look, let’s just check it out. If nothing comes of it then at least we tried all we could.”

“Fine. Night, Sam.” Dean muttered as he dumped his luggage at the foot of his bed and promptly collapsed onto it. 

While Dean fell asleep, Sam stayed up a while longer, searching for information on Alana’s past, her daughter, her house, her family. By 3AM he had compiled a list of potentially important information. He knew that Alana had given them instructions, and that this could be a simple task if he wanted it to be. But something didn’t sit right with him about this child’s death. Why had Alana left her hometown and moved to the US? Why had she not told anyone about it? And why them after all these years? The questions outweighed the answers right now, but Sam was utterly determined to figure out what happened. He closed the lid of his laptop, retired to his own bed, and dreamed of little children on swings, of mothers pushing prams, and of tiny, fragile bones hidden in a box waiting to be found.


	2. Don't Look Into The Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was almost dark when they arrived, after an hour’s drive. The Winchesters hopped out of the Impala, eyeing up the old house standing solitary in the middle of the countryside. If they didn’t know better, they’d have thought it was abandoned. At least two of the windows were boarded up, and the exterior was covered from top to bottom in ivy and other creeping plants that had devoured the face of the building until it resembled a giant, thorny face with a bloody mouth.

Dean awoke on Sunday afternoon, feeling well rested and ready to take on the challenge they had been sent to complete. He sat up, and noticed that Sam had already been up to get food, and made coffee. Dean stretched, getting out of bed and heading to the table where Sam was working on his laptop.

“Found anything?”

“Not really. Birth records, vaccinations, preschool enrolment forms, but nothing in between all of those things, and nothing after either. The kid was never in the hospital, and there was no news report about her death.” Sam answered, taking a sip of coffee.

“Well, then I guess we just do what we came here to do, and then get out of here.”

“Does that not seem suspicious to you, Dean? No record of her death?”

“Maybe they do it differently over here.” Dean retorted, picking up a cup and pouring himself some coffee. “Maybe the family wanted it private. I mean, c’mon, Alana didn’t even tell her own husband about it.”

“I’m sure there was a reason for that.”

“Yeah, she was a fruitcake, that’s what.”

Sam offered a mirthful chuckle that was somewhat closer to chiding Dean than he intended. His brother’s sense of humour was a little coarse sometimes, and although Sam was used to it, he wasn’t sure if it would go down too well with people in England. Closing his laptop, he looked up at his older brother and then gestured to the door. There was a silent moment of understanding and the brothers readied themselves to leave for Alana’s childhood residence.

It was almost dark when they arrived, after an hour’s drive. The Winchesters hopped out of the Impala, eyeing up the old house standing solitary in the middle of the countryside. If they didn’t know better, they’d have thought it was abandoned. At least two of the windows were boarded up, and the exterior was covered from top to bottom in ivy and other creeping plants that had devoured the face of the building until it resembled a giant, thorny face with a bloody mouth. The door, which had once been cherry red, was now a dirt-stained deep maroon from years of neglect. Patches of the paint had chipped away, showing the tired wood underneath. It gave Dean the shivers just looking at the place.

Approaching the door, Sam gave Dean a look as if to warn him against his humour at this point. The younger brother knocked, and they waited for what seemed like forever. They could smell the country air, which was sort of cold and a little damp where the grass had dew on it from the mist which was beginning to roll over the fields. A few bugs flew around, searching for something they’d never find. Dean gave a huff, and knocked again, louder than Sam had done.

The door opened with a creak, and an old man- perhaps in his late sixties- opened it. Dean hadn’t known what to expect but this certainly wasn’t it. He looked smart - far too smart to be living in a derelict-looking house.

“Good evening, sir. We, uh, we were sent here by-”

“My daughter sent you.” The man commented in a gruff voice. It wasn’t a question, and yet it required an answer.

“Alana sent us, yes. She gave us a job to do here. Unfinished business, if you will.” Dean replied with a curt smile.

“Caroline. She changed her name when she left. Fifteen years ago.”

“I see. She didn’t mention that,” Sam said. “Would you mind if we came in?”

“It’s about time someone came in here, after all these years,” the man mumbled, moving to one side to allow the brothers entry. “Come on in.”

Dean went first, stepping over the threshold with a surety that only men like him ever possessed. The temperature in the house was the same as outside, but he wasn’t entirely certain if that was because the house was non-functional or because there was a ghost in there. The hallway was lined with a long console table that housed an ancient-looking and probably functionally useless telephone, along with some family photographs coated in a layer of dust. 

“Can we see her room?” Sam asked, gesturing to the staircase at the end of the hallway. Flicking his hair to one side, Sam glanced up into the gloom, but he could see nothing.

“By all means. I’ll leave you to it. I’ve had my fill of Caroline’s ghosts.”

“Ghosts, sir?”

“When she left, she took a piece of my heart. And her mother’s. Now they’re all gone, and I’m left with only memories and dust.”

Dean smirked at that, but Sam gave him a nudge to clear the ironic expression.

“What about the child?”

“There was no child. She was twenty when she left.”

“Alana’s - I mean, Caroline’s child. A little girl.”

“She never had a little girl. Not until she moved to the states and found her husband over there. They’ve got three children, I believe. I haven’t heard from her in years.”

Dean glanced at Sam from the corner of his eye, willing his younger brother to say something sensitive. It was clear the old man was losing his memory, his mind, and his dignity by the state of the house. He didn’t want to say something that would hurt him, but he needed to know his daughter had passed away. But before either brother could say anything, the old man chimed in again.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. She sent us here with her dying wish, to find something she hid here before she left for America.” Sam used a diplomatic answer, as it seemed that mentioning Alana’s child would not help them at all. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Please, could you tell us your name? Your daughter didn’t mention it.”

“David,” he muttered. “I’m... David. Caroline’s bedroom is the second door on the right.”

“David, we’re very sorry for your loss. We’ll take a quick look around and then we’ll be out of your way. Thank you for letting us in.” Sam gave the older man a pat on the shoulder, which was met with a solemn nod. David disappeared into what appeared to be his kitchen, and then the brothers went upstairs.

The darkness of the upper corridor swallowed the brothers, enveloping them in a velvet blanket of secrets to uncover and puzzles to solve. Dean tried a light switch and, to their surprise, the lights flickered on, revealing wallpaper from the seventies, peeling around the edges and faded in some places. The windows that weren’t boarded up were dusty, and they could barely see out of them. The bathroom door had been left ajar, and seemed to be the only room that was relatively clean.

Sam opened the door to Caroline’s bedroom and stepped inside, allowing the light from the hallway to filter in and illuminate the abandoned room. Pink carpet and bedlinen, shelves with stuffed bears sat in a row, a box of barbies stashed under a small desk, and a pair of fluffy slippers neatly placed by the foot of the bed. Everything in the room was old, hadn’t been touched for years, smelled horrific. The Winchesters covered their noses and stepped in. The smell wasn’t just musty old bedroom smell. It smelled like death.

“Where did she say it was? The box?” Sam asked.

“Under a… floorboard. Or a trap door? A secret hiding place, she said. Hidden from view.” Dean began knocking along the wall, looking for a hollow spot. Sam toed at the carpet and the rug, expecting to find a loose section they could pull up. They brothers eventually had to move the bed aside and feel long the floor and wall in the corner of the room. There they finally found a change in sound when knocking against the old wall. It felt as if it might crumble beneath their hands, melt away into nothing, disappear as a puff of ash.

Dean pulled back the carpet in the corner of the room and found that the wallpaper also lifted away from the wall in one piece. He pulled it away from the wall, ripping it right off. The carpet lay back, folded over in a neat triangle; it remembered its routine even after fifteen years of disuse. There, carved neatly into the wooden floorboards was the name ‘Sarah’, around which was a neat line that followed a rectangular shape through planks of wood and up through the wooden panel of the wall. The elder Winchester felt around the edges of the line, until his fingers found purchase between the wall and the floor, a notch which had been chipped away for this very purpose. He tugged it, and the entire piece came away from the corner of the room, an ‘L’ shape of floor and wall that had been carved out with rudimentary skills. The hollow beneath let out a gasp of dust, and the brothers could have sworn they heard a child crying. The dust settled, and the brothers peered into the void, waiting for it to peer back into them. When nothing happened, Dean reached his hand into the space.

“Got it,” he said, palming the box and shuffling it forth into the dim light of the old room. “I kinda hoped it wouldn’t be here. I don’t even wanna open it.”

“I’ll do it,” Sam whispered, pulling the box into the centre of the room. There was a leather belt around it, barely clinging on to the last hole in the strap. It had withered with time, layers wrinkling and cracking where it broached the corners of the box. It didn’t take much to pull it apart, and it snapped away from the box with a sudden slap against the exposed floorboards. Dean flinched, but Sam barely moved; he had been holding his breath. Underneath, the box was wrapped in black packing tape, which Sam sliced with a pen knife from his pocket. It fell away, the stickiness long since spent. 

The younger Winchester breathed once, shallowly, closed his eyes, and then opened the box. It had been a gift box of some kind once, large and full of promise. Now it meant something else entirely. He mentally prepared himself to look at the remains of a three year old child, a girl who had been snatched from this life long before her time. A girl who, if she had lived, would have been eighteen years old now. The scent of death pervaded the air, and Sam steeled himself for what he was about to see. No amount of death, killing, demon hunting, vamp beheading, witch destroying, wendigo fighting, or shapeshifter skins would ever make seeing a dead kid okay. Never. 

He opened his eyes.

But what the brothers saw in that box was something else entirely. 

“What the--” Dean blurted, just as everything went black.


	4. I Don't Like Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In her lifetime she had experienced three great tragedies. Her first true love running off with another woman. The loss of her parents when she was twenty-seven. And witnessing the death of little Sarah, fifteen years before. She would never admit it, but the latter was the one that had truly stayed with her.
> 
> “You’re not health and safety, are you?” Amanda bluntly demanded once she was alone with the Winchesters. “This case hasn’t been looked at for fifteen years, and now suddenly you come in here and need all the details. Why?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more I write of this story, the more I horrify myself. Some of this is based on true events.
> 
> Song; I Don't Like Monday by the Boom Town Rats.

“Oh! Two daddies, how sweet!” 

The nursery receptionist cooed and fussed over the Winchesters when they arrived early on Monday morning. She had bright blue eyes and blonde hair, and a vacant look that was ever so sweet - the kind of person that wouldn’t hurt a fly. Her fluffy cardigan screamed ‘homemaker’, and smart, uncomfortable-looking shoes had clearly only ever been worn in the office. There was a sort of naivety to her as well, despite her age, which was at least mid-thirties. Sam had spoken to her on the phone to arrange a visit to the nursery, but she had clearly misunderstood and thought they were parents looking to enrol their child.

“We hardly ever get two daddies in here. There’s a few of our children who’ve got two mummies, but no double daddies yet! Where’s your little one? We just love new faces around here. More children means more love!” The woman had continued babbling on as she got out of her seat and walked around the desk to greet the Winchesters properly, eyeing up their smart suits and smiling incessantly.

“Actually, ma’am, we’re here on official business. We’re health and safety officers. Here to inspect the building and check everything is up to scratch,” Dean stated, trying to ignore how uncomfortable he was at the thought of he and Sam raising a child together as ‘two daddies’. “We’re, uh, we’re not gay. Just colleagues.”

The receptionist looked positively disappointed for a moment, but then suddenly she leaped into action, her face changing from dismay to panic.

“Barbara!” She all but screamed. “Health and safety! Health and safety! The audit is finally upon us! Health and safety!”

The woman responding to the name ‘Barbara’ took a sharp inhale, staring at the Winchesters. She quickly turned it into a smile and greeted them in the most saccharine way before practically sprinting down the hallway to tell the rest of the staff that they were about to be inspected. 

The degree of respect the brothers were shown as they had their tour of the nursery was incredible. Clearly this nursery took their health and safety very seriously. They were shown rooms of babies dribbling and banging building blocks on the floor, of toddlers drawing on tables and climbing on furniture, and of preschoolers trying to write their name and pretending to cook in the little play kitchen. It was an aspect of the world that Sam and Dean had never really looked at, never paid much attention to. Obviously they knew these places existed, but it wasn’t an area they ventured into often, if at all. They eyed the surroundings, keeping quiet, pretending to take notes. When it was finally over they smiled at the receptionist and requested to see their files on previously enrolled children, a request which was met with a rather odd look.

“It’s for the purpose of ensuring correct procedures in filing,” Sam explained. “I’m sure you understand. Random spot check.”

When the files were produced, Sam and Dean were shown to a small room where they could pore over the files to their hearts’ content. It took a long time to find what they were looking for, but eventually Dean found a document in a ‘serious accidents’ folder from 2004. The name ‘Sarah Mitchell’ was written in red ink across the top of the page, and a detailed description of the incident was scrawled underneath. There were water marks on the page, as if someone had cried on it while filling out the form. Dean could barely bear to read it after he began, but he continued to the end and then handed it to Sam.

“She died here. Alana’s daughter died here. On site. In one of these rooms...” Dean shuddered, imagining the chaos it would have caused for everyone around, staff and children alike. “Asphyxiation. But they said it looked like there were… other injuries.”

Nobody ever wants to say out loud that a child has been abused. Nobody wants the words to taint their mouth with morbid, unspeakable crimes.

“We need to speak to someone who was here.”

The only person at the nursery who had worked there at the time of the incident was Amanda Berry, now team leader and head of the preschool teachers. A quietly confident woman, she stood at a little over five foot three, but had a commanding presence about her. Soft features gave way to a sharp haircut, black hair all angles about her face. In her lifetime she had experienced three great tragedies. The loss of her first true love to another woman. The death of her parents when she was twenty-seven. And witnessing the death of little Sarah, fifteen years before. She would never admit it, but the latter was the one that had truly stayed with her. Sarah haunted her dreams and knocked at the edges of her mind even now. There was always a sense that someone was behind Amanda, breathing over her shoulder, or trying to tug at her sleeve. It was something she could never put into words. The smile she gave to the Winchesters was a reserved one; she hated being reminded of what had happened there any more than she was used to.

“You’re not health and safety, are you?” Amanda bluntly demanded once she was alone with the Winchesters. “This case hasn’t been looked at for fifteen years, and now suddenly you come in here and need all the details. Why?”

“You’re right, Amanda, we’re not. We were sent here by a friend. Someone we owed a favour to. We need to know what happened here… We’re looking for Sarah,” Sam explained, although not very well. The vagueness riled Amanda even further.

“What friend? What friend could possibly want to know about this? Sarah’s dead. She has been for a long time.”

“Alana sent us,” Dean said with an apologetic look. “Although you probably knew her as Caroline. She passed away recently and asked us to come back for Sarah’s remains to lay her to rest. But when we arrived at Alana’s old house, Sarah wasn’t there. We’re trying to figure out what happened so we can make sure Sarah gets the burial she deserves.”

Amanda’s face went pale, and a brief expression of shock fluttered across her face, before she quickly snapped it away and locked it deep down within herself. She knew it. Sarah’s body never got laid to rest properly. All these years of torment, Amanda had been delving into the unknown, researching into the paranormal and trying to explain the chilling things that happened to her. And not just to herself, but to anyone who set foot in the nursery.

“I was only sixteen when it happened,” she started, suddenly less defensive. Her tone said that she wanted to help, and that she also needed help from the Winchesters too. “I started my job here as an apprentice, the summer after I left school. Caroline was here too - four years older than me.”

There was a pause as Amanda collected her thoughts and let out a shaky sigh. The brothers didn’t press her; they knew she was about to tell them something important.

“She had a beautiful little girl whom we all adored… Sarah. Little Sarah.”

And with that, the story began.


End file.
